October 10, 2021 • 51 mins
I had a blast in Tokyo and this is a story of my favorite nights in this crazy and cool mega city!
This is a retelling of my favorite nights in Tokyo, Japan - from the Gay Goth Samurai to being rejected from bars, having a chef literally walk out on us, without saying anything until we left, to bringing an entire bar to life, staying out until the sun rises in central Tokyo, and enjoying the best of times in a place called Golden Gai, a place of warmth and a welcoming spirit in the middle of a chaotic and otherwise seemingly impersonal city.
Tokyo is a crazy, cool, amazing city and I can't wait to go back!!!
I got a little carried-away with this story, so its a bit longer than my usual podcast, but I hope you enjoy it :)
Leave me a message on: https://nofairytaletravels.substack.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello.
Hello and welcome back to nofairytale travels this week.
I'm in a great mood and I'mfeeling like we should talk
about Tokyo.
One of my favorite cities.
I talk a lot about it in reallife.
Well, I guess this is real lifealso, and I want to tell you
about it now because it's one ofmy favorite places to go.
(00:23):
And it is also Tokyo and Japanin general is the only place
that I've ever been, where everysingle stereotype about it is
true.
But here, I'm not just going totalk about all the little
interesting, beautiful, crazythings of Japan and Tokyo.
(00:43):
I have to force myself to focusor it's going to be an hour or
three hour long podcast.
So, oh, before I begin.
Yeah, no fairy tale travels dotsub stack.com.
If you have any questions orcomments, go to no fairy tale
travels dot sub stack.com.
(01:05):
Find the post for this podcastand leave me a message.
Comment, question, whatever youwant.
Give it a like, that'd be cool.
So Tokyo, let me tell you just alittle bit about how Tokyo is,
and then today I want to focuson just a little tiny aspect of
it that makes it really special,not just all the big things that
(01:26):
you know about.
So Tokyo is a mega city, a megacity of a mega cities.
It is the biggest city I've everbeen to.
It is a sea of buildings.
As far as the eye can see intothe distance until you see Mount
Fuji.
I believe it is.
I should have looked that one upbefore I said that, um, it's a
(01:50):
sea of buildings and I believe Iwanted to make sure I got this
right.
So I looked it up.
The numbers are that the cityhas 9 million maybe in the very,
very center and then 13 millionin the metropolis.
And the greater area is 38million ish, something like
that.
And I believe New York city is18 million ish or 15 or 14
(02:14):
million ish.
So just to give you an idea ofthe size difference, I think it
says the internet says the nextbiggest sort of metropolis area
is Seoul, Korea, which I stillvote on pronouncing seal.
So I've been there as well asTokyo.
And it really is a mega city,but Tokyo just trumps
(02:34):
everything.
So it's a mega city, so manypeople so much going on, but so
orderly and so perfect.
It is if you are to look like ifyou are to be Japanese or to
look Japanese.
(02:55):
So I guess to be Japanese, youwill disappear into a sea people
and maybe never be recognized ornoticed if you're a foreigner,
you are going to be noticedvery, very, very quickly because
there aren't that manyforeigners in Tokyo.
So you get more attention.
But what I just want to talkabout today is how big and how
vast it is, but that there is akernel of comfort and coziness
(03:19):
to the city that you can findthat makes it truly, truly
special.
Because as you're walkingthrough the streets around all
the tall buildings, and thenalso the little buildings,
depending on the area, andyou're going in the Metro full
of people and all theattractions and all the things
you can do, it can feeloverwhelming, can feel chaotic.
(03:41):
It can feel like why would Iever want to live in this city?
This is the least humaninteraction possible.
You are like sardines in a can.
You can't really well, you canexpress yourself, but it feels
like you can't express yourself.
You're just, I don't know.
You're like a plankton in thesea, nothing special, just one
(04:05):
of billions with everythingelse.
But Tokyo has something really,really special to it.
Something that has made it sothat I, even though only I've
only been there for 10 days, 10days in total, I said one day in
my life, one time in my life, Iam going to live there.
(04:26):
And the reason is because eventhough it is such a mega city,
which by the way, it has threeMetro lines.
And I think it might have afourth one.
If you tried to go to the beacharea, which is a little bit
toxic, because it's also a portarea, you, you can spend so much
money on the Metro in a day dueto them having multiple lines.
Like it's just so overwhelmingif you're not used to this type
(04:49):
of thing, but it has all ofthese little tiny establishments
throughout the city.
So you're in a mega city, butwhen you go into a restaurant,
you're going to be sitting therewith 10 people or 15 people.
The restaurant focuses on oneparticular dish.
I'm going to do an episode juston the food in Japan, by the
(05:10):
way, at some point, because itis the best food that I have
ever had in the entire world.
I believe seven of my 10 topdishes are all from Japan stuff
that I never expected to be sogood.
But when you engage, especiallyin eating and drinking, that's
when it can become morepersonal, more sociable, more
(05:31):
cozy and comfortable, not in allof the city.
They have a particular type ofracism in Japan, which I like to
call polite racism.
It's a poll.
They're the most polite racistyou've ever met in your entire
life.
So when they reject you fromsome eating establishments, it's
, it's, uh, in a very politeway, actually one chef, he just,
(05:53):
he just left and didn't comeback.
But that was a small littleeating, eating establishment
where you would go in there only10 or 15 people.
And it's nice and it's local solocal that they didn't want
foreigners, but okay, I'mgetting sidetracked.
I'm getting sidetrack.
The point is that I want to sayabout this big chaotic city, but
you can get these small, localpersonal experiences.
(06:15):
Now you're not going to get itin every single restaurant or
every single place you eat, orevery single thing that you do.
In fact, the purpose of thistalk today, this podcast is to
focus on one specific area thatmakes it really, really, really
special.
And that is called golden guy.
(06:38):
Sounds kind of weird when I sayit in English, I'm going to go
hang out in golden guy.
Okay.
I think if you say that in SanFrancisco, you are definitely
talking about something else.
So golden guy is this wonderfularea in Tokyo, that's near
Shinjuku shin shin.
Juku is kind of a veryinteresting entertainment area
(07:01):
of which there are many, butthis is a famous one and golden
guys next to it.
And what it is is a series ofsmall little streets, all
pedestrian zone, kind of likecobblestoney streets with, I
believe it's hundreds of littlebars and establishments and
every single one is different.
Every single one seems to beowner operated, different style,
(07:24):
different theme, maybe differenttypes of drinks.
And they seat between eight,maybe even less than that, eight
to 30 people.
So 30 is going to be a reallybig one.
I'd say the average one seats,maybe 15 people ish, probably.
(07:45):
And this is the place where youcan come from any part of the
city.
And the moment that you stepinto golden di you feel that you
have gone into sort of feudalJapan back in time, where
there's no cars buzzing by andthere's no chaos and things slow
down.
(08:05):
And when you enter anestablishment, if you're allowed
to enter, I'll get to that in amoment.
When you enter an establishment,you, you are, you are somewhere,
you are some, one you becomepart of a group, part of a
community.
Someone cares about you.
(08:26):
It almost feels like it ispersonal people.
Talk to you.
The bar Tinder engages you.
And I want to talk about threeplaces that I went to in golden
guy.
I had, I went there more thanthat, but I'm going to talk
about three here.
And for my 10 days in Tokyo, Ihad number of events planned
(08:50):
where I'm going to go to someinteresting nightclubs that
people talk about and travelbloggers, say, go here.
It's so cool, blah, blah, blue,blue, and go get drunk there and
see this and see that.
But after my first night ingolden guy, I stayed there until
5:00 AM had one of my best nightout experiences ever only went
(09:12):
to two bars.
And for the next three nights ina row, went back to this place.
It was that good.
So let me pour some wine andlet's talk about golden guy.
Was that an intro?
Does that count as an intro?
That was a lot of talking that Idid.
(09:32):
Sorry.
I didn't plan that out so much.
I just want to talk about goldenguy today.
Oh yeah.
That's a good amount of wine.
Okay.
This wine confidential, Reserva,Tinto red, apparently the wine
bottles they import to Americafrom Europe.
They give kind of like dumbeddown labels.
(09:54):
So I can't give you that muchinformation about this today.
It's a wine that's from theregion of Lisboa.
I like how the labels inEnglish, but they say Lisboa
instead of Lisbon, because theywant it to sound sexy.
I guess maybe it does.
I don't know.
Anyway, it's from Portugal.
Not really my favorite.
I do miss the grapes in theBalkans.
(10:15):
I missed the[inaudible], which I think is pronounced
Vonage, but that's okay. Um,so let's cheers to golden guy.
And I think by the end of this,you will also cheers to golden
guy.
So you walk around big, crazyTokyo.
(10:37):
You see some sites, you go to aspecial lunch with a Sumo and
you watch a little Sumoexhibition.
One of my favorite things inTokyo, I'll talk about it
another time.
And then you go to this weirdlittle place called golden guy,
golden guy.
What the hell is that?
Why are you there?
Someone in the hostel whocouldn't stop talking about
(11:00):
anime all day just said, let'sgo to golden guy and you don't
know where the hell you reallyare.
So you go and you get there andyou're walking down the streets
and you realize, wow, it feelslike I've entered another city.
You have two story buildings,everything feels small and cozy.
(11:22):
And the local, not that manypeople can fit into each
establishment.
In fact, at least half of theestablishment, maybe not half a
good amount of theestablishments have signs
outside that say for Japanesespeakers only.
And what that means by the wayis, uh, yeah.
(11:44):
Uh, off foreigners.
We don't want you, if you're notJapanese, we don't want you
because, uh, I dunno if you knowthis, there ain't that many
people learn in Japanese as aforeign language.
And I feel pretty confidentgiven some of my experiences
that maybe I'll talk about inanother podcast that, uh, uh,
even if you spoke Japanese, ifyou are not Japanese, they would
(12:07):
not have really been happy thatyou were in their bar.
And then there are a lot ofother little bars that say the
entrance fee is eight euros or10 euros or$8 or$10, something
like that.
And so you're thinking, oh mygosh, why am I going to pay$8 to
go into this little bar or$10?
And these places over here, theydon't even want me w this is
(12:31):
what am I doing here?
And then you keep walking andyou let the animate people in
your crew, just say, Hey, Hey,calm, calm, relax.
It's okay.
And you go into the first barand it's like, I want to say
Gothic gay samurai.
(12:51):
That's my description of thisbar.
God gay samurai, everything ispainted black.
The let's say camp looking, butalso bad-ass looking.
So I picked that word up from,from Britain.
I liked, you know, camp usingthat word in that regard, let's
say slightly interesting lookingyet.
(13:13):
Still bad-ass looking bartenderwho looks kind of like a samurai
that may be favors the same sex,um, standing behind the bar.
And now you're thinking I'm inone of the most traditional
societies I've ever been in, inmy life.
And I'm looking at a gay samuraiand a Gothic bar, and it only
(13:34):
seats 10 people where the hellam I.
And it turns out that the guyspecializes in, uh, I think it's
cocktails and Saki.
And so we had some really,really interesting fun drinks,
the bar tenders chatting to us,you know, when we went in, he
(13:56):
didn't just walk out anddisappear.
Like the other experience thathad happened to me in a
different neighborhood, heengaged us.
He talked to us, he gave me alot of attention, which I have
to say really kind of caught thegirls off guard.
Uh, they, they were a little bitannoyed by that, but it was
great for me.
I got all sorts of free Sakitasting out of it.
(14:19):
And nothing that we experiencedin that place felt like the big
chaotic Tokyo.
It was small cozy kind of weirdkind of interesting.
No, not kind of interesting,amazingly interesting fun and
above all welcoming.
(14:42):
It was great.
The only bad thing about thatexperience was half the group or
a bunch of negative Nancys.
So that had nothing to do withthe bar after this bar.
Wait, wait, let me describe Mr.
Samurai a little bit better.
So, okay.
Samurai guy.
I don't know why some peoplethink that Japanese people are
short, maybe in some parts ofJapan, they are, but in Tokyo,
(15:04):
certainly not.
So the guy is like a six foot,one, I think, or six foot.
What does that one meter?
82 centimeters, 83, 84centimeters, something like
that.
He's got big, broad shoulders,but it's kind of thin and has a
long flowing, shiny black hairdown to the middle of his back
(15:27):
or a little bit longer.
And he's got black clothes onand kind of silver ish rings on.
He is the gay Goss samurai and akind of campy look to him.
What's the, what's the word inEnglish for campiness?
I don't know.
(15:48):
There's a good one.
Anyway, I'm going to use theBritish one.
Kind of can't be look reallyfunny.
Dude, loved talking to us, loved, uh, meeting foreigners.
And we had a great time there.
So we spent a couple hours thereand then the negative Nancy
start complaining.
So we go outside and thenegative, Nancy's all go home
(16:08):
because they're negative Nancyswho the hell, even once I hang
out with them anyway.
And then we ended up beinginstead of a group of, I think,
five, a group of two or three orsix to two or three, we'd become
much smaller.
So we continue walking throughgolden guy.
And I think it is now thenegative Nancy's wanted to catch
(16:31):
the Metro, which means theywould have left around 12 ish,
maybe a little bit beforemidnight because the Metro
closes in Tokyo around thattime.
Maybe 1:00 AM.
So we're walking around goldenguy looking for other places and
kind of, we're just a little bitdismayed.
These people, they don't wantus.
(16:51):
So we had this great experiencewith the Gothic samurai dude.
And now we keep seeing all thesesigns, you know, uh, only
Japanese speakers, 10 year oldsto get in, uh, what was it?
Foreigners have to pay 10 eurosto get in.
That's what sign you'd seesometimes.
And we're getting more annoyed,more annoyed.
(17:12):
And then we get to the end of itand we make a sort of loop.
And as we're making a loop onthe end, we see one sign and all
these signs are in English.
We see one sign that saysforeigners don't pay to get in.
And he might've said also, um,locals pay 10 euros to get in.
(17:33):
He wanted foreigners to get in.
So we're thinking, whoa, okay.
I don't know what's going onhere.
This is like the witch in themiddle of the forest that offers
you candy.
So they can cut you up intolittle pieces.
You know, they offer yousomething nice to kind trick
you.
Now, we weren't really thatscared, but we just thought, oh
my God, finally, someone who,who, who wants to meet us and
(17:55):
Tokyo, by the way, it doesn'thave that many foreigners in it.
It's not like a Barcelona.
It's not like a Paris, oh myGod.
Or a London or anything likethat.
It's so far away and soexpensive to get to and so
expensive when you're there thatit really keeps out most
foreigners.
So it's not like in a one ofthese other big cities where you
can imagine how people get tiredof foreigners.
(18:16):
I think Japan has gotten tiredof foreigners just by, I don't
know, reading about them, notexperiencing them.
I don't actually know, but we gointo this guy's bar and it is a
dude in his sixties who hasowned this place for, I believe
his entire adult life.
He's got pictures of him withall local celebrities on the
(18:40):
wall.
He's got signed, handmadedrawings, custom drawings made
from top anime artists, which isa really popular style of, Ooh,
I got to be careful what I sayhere.
Um, artwork, it's not cartoons,but it's a really interesting
style and it's very famous andpopular in Japan.
(19:02):
Um, they do, um, animated showsout of it.
I believe it's animated showsand he's got all those song
signed drawings on the wall.
He's got baseball memorabiliaeverywhere, signed by the guys
who are in the photos.
And he's got baseballs that aresigned by everyone on the team.
Baseball is huge in Japan.
(19:23):
It's a little bit different thanthe U S one, but it's pretty
much the same.
And he's watching a TV with ablack and white movie and he
greets us with smiles.
And he's so happy when we comein.
There's no one else in there.
It seats about 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7, 8, 9.
I think it, uh, it would seatsix people standing room for 12,
(19:47):
uh, standing room for twoaverage Americans or 20 Japanese
people.
It's a wood bar.
It's about two meters wide.
He's got a wooden thing aboveit, where he used to sit when he
was younger and play guitar.
As the bar was filled, he hadphotos of it and sing to all of
(20:10):
his patrons.
So he's playing the guitar he'ssinging and everyone is down
below drinking.
And down below the, the ceilingwas only about three meters,
high, 12 feet higher.
So we're 13 feet high.
And this dude wants nothing morethan to talk to foreigners and
(20:30):
to get our experiences and toshare experiences with us.
So we get there around 12 isharound one ish, and we're told
everywhere, kind of closes therearound two or three.
We stayed for hours, drinking,telling stories, reliving this
guy's past and going through allof his memorabilia, watching the
(20:54):
movie on the, on the TV here andthere, or little scenes of it.
I think it was maybe a Westernmovie or something from the U S
just a really, reallyinteresting guy who believes
that the beauty of life is thediversity of our experiences in
life.
(21:14):
And that, that is what enrichesus.
So all these other places, notall of them, you know, we had
Gothic samurai, dude.
He was cool, but a lot of theother places, they just, they
only want their regulars, whichis very understandable, by the
way, you want to get a stressfullife.
You want to hang out with thesame crew.
I get it.
But this guy, he wants thedifferences.
(21:35):
He wants the experiences.
And we just got drunk with himfor hours talking about
everything under the sun, it wassmall, it was cozy.
It was welcoming.
It was lovely.
(21:57):
And we didn't leave until, Idon't know, 4:00 AM 5:00 AM,
something like that.
I think four 30.
That was my first night ingolden guy.
So after that, you can imaginehow the, the thought of just
going to some club where I'mgoing to go, okay, look, I've
been to a lot of clubs in mylife.
(22:18):
So the thought of just going toanother club and dancing and
drinking and having relativelysimilar experiences to all the
other ones I've had in my entirelife.
And, uh, quote unquote, theworld's nicest places or gloves
or some crap like that is notappealing when you, when you get
this beautiful, unique, amazingexperience.
(22:43):
And for every single night afterthis one, I went back to golden
guy.
I went to different bars and Ihad different experiences, all
fun, all crazy, all weird andinteresting, all cozy and all
surprisingly welcoming.
(23:04):
So for this podcast, I'm gladthat I actually know what this
thing is.
Now.
I went to recount one more ofthe bars in golden guy.
There are many experiences thatI have there, but I want to give
you one more that I thought wasreally, really, really
(23:25):
interesting.
So one night I am in the hosteland I meet up with the Latin
contingent.
There are some central Americansand some south Americans who are
there and I ended up hanging outwith them.
They're always fun to hang outwith.
(23:46):
I have to tell you, okay, I gotto, I'm going to stay on topic.
I'm going to stay on topic.
Latin Americans are really funto go out with.
They're very loud.
They move their bodies a lotwithout warning.
If there's even a hint of musicanywhere, or they even think of
music.
So anyway, I go out with him, wego to golden guy and we're
(24:09):
looking for a new place and wego, we're a slightly larger
group.
So we can't go into the twoplaces I just mentioned.
I think we were six people.
No, not at all.
We were more than six people.
I don't know.
Anyway, the samurai guys' placewas full, so we couldn't go in
there.
And the other dude's place wastoo small for us to go in.
So we go in some place where yougo upstairs, scary little dark
(24:36):
wooden stairs without a light toa second floor where it looks
like it's going to be some sortof a whorehouse or drug, uh,
place, or, or just a place whereyou are not welcome in any other
country.
You, you would be, uh, a lotmore scared in Japan.
You're not that scared, butyou're like, Hmm, maybe this is
(24:59):
not for foreigners, but the bardidn't have anything on the
outside that said we cancouldn't come in or that we had
to pay, or we had to speakJapanese or anything.
So we go in on the second floor.
And, and, and have you ever seena Jean-Claude van Damme movie
from the nineties or theeighties?
(25:20):
Did he, did he make any in theeighties?
I don't know.
I've watched a lot ofJean-Claude van Damme movies.
I love his movies.
So go to like eighties, HongKong style bar, kind of, and
that's what it felt like.
It was a bigger bar.
You could probably fit 30 peopleinside and had a full size bar
in it.
It had some standing tables andsincere sitting tables.
(25:41):
The light wa all, all the lightshad a red hue to them.
And there were a couple ofmedium-sized chandelier's
hanging from the ceiling as wellas a couple of TVs, playing
older movies on them, likekarate movies.
And I believe that the movieswere subtitled in the same
(26:03):
language that they were in.
Like, I think it was an Englishmovie, but with English
subtitles or something likethat.
And so we walk in and we see allof these guys, I'm going to
paint a picture for you someslightly chubby with all with
black shirts and kind of jeansand some just, you know what,
(26:25):
you, you know, skinny, tallertypes, whatever, but everybody
kind of wearing black.
Right.
And everyone just sort ofsitting down, talking, laughing,
being loud and being what seemedlike open.
And we just sort of walk in andthis doesn't happen in Japan.
They're very quiet, veryreserved, very thin.
(26:46):
So you walk in, you see allthese things you don't normally
see.
And I was like, holy, we do notbelong here.
This is not good for us.
We need to get the hell out ofhere.
But you with south Americans whohad seen stuff and then, and
(27:09):
been in, in, in, in dangeroussituations, just talk to them
about motorbikes.
If they hear a motorbike soundthat's loud and kind of behind
them, they have PTSD from thatbecause they think someone's
going to steal bag from them.
And so we go in there, they'relike, no, no, no, everything's
good.
Everything's good.
We're just going to relax.
So we go to one of the stand-uptables and we order some drinks.
(27:31):
And there is only a coupleladies there.
I think one of them is behindthe bar.
Everyone is smoking like achimney.
I sit against the wall and I'mlike, Jesus Christ.
We are in a mafia bar.
Like, this is, this is not goingto be good.
What the hell is happening here?
And then about 10 minutes later.
(27:51):
So our drinks come and then 10minutes later, a round of
tequila shots arrives at ourtable for free.
And the guy who ordered themcomes up and we all take shots
and we talk and we laugh and wedrink.
And everyone in the room laughsand talks and drinks.
(28:14):
And now that I'm saying this outloud, I'm thinking maybe he was
the one that was sent toinvestigate why we were there.
So it doesn't necessarily meanthat it wasn't some sort of
mafia bar.
But, but what I was thinking iseither someone is going to tell
us, get the hell outta here, orthey aren't going to serve us.
Or they're just going to beincredibly rude to us.
(28:36):
But what happened is we got freedrinks and throughout the course
of the evening, not just thatguy, but other people in the bar
came up to talk to us.
You don't have to go far to comeup to someone there about a foot
30 centimeters, no, a couple offeet there.
So like you go a meter, you gothree feet and then you run into
someone, you talk to him.
So we got to meet all sorts ofpeople.
(28:57):
There were people bringing foodto the bar from other
restaurants.
And so you could tell thateveryone there was irregular,
but instead of shunning us,which had happened at other
establishments, not in goldenguy, but in other places, they
welcomed us.
And we were there for hoursdrinking and having a great time
at this place that looked like aJean-Claude van Damme mafia bar
(29:19):
from Hong Kong in the 1980s.
And this is all in golden guy inTokyo.
And the other few times that Iwent there to different bars as
well.
The experiences were alwaysdifferent, always unique.
(29:40):
Nothing was the same, nothing asfar as the look or necessarily
the feel, but the bars that wewere able to get into and that
we did go into the one themethat was consistent was cozy,
comfort, warmth, and beingwelcomed.
(30:01):
It was, gosh, it was so great.
You know what?
I'm not done with this story.
I was going to end right there,but I'm not done.
I'm not done because the, thestory that I just told you the
night did not end in golden guy.
Then actually the night did endin golden guy for me that night
I was there twice.
So here's what happened.
I'm going to tell you, okay,here's what happened.
(30:21):
So that night we're having agreat time and Latin Americans,
they've always got big groups ofpeople.
I think it's just one of themdances somewhere in the city.
And another one feels it thatcan sense the dancing.
And so they, they gravitatetowards the, the ones who are
dancing on the other side of thecity and they find them.
So our group was quicklygrowing.
(30:42):
There were some others outside.
We went to meet up with them.
So a couple hours after we'vebeen in this bar, we said
goodbye to everyone.
They were so friendly.
We had a great time.
I'm not certain that they wouldwant us to come back every
night, but they were at leastinterested and welcoming of us
that night.
And I liked it.
So we go outside and we thenbecome a group of 10 people,
(31:03):
which is basically impossiblefor us to go into any bar and
golden guy.
We're not going to get a seat.
The bar would have to becompletely empty and then they'd
have to want to have a bar fullof 10 foreigners.
And it's just, and it's going tobe really not a pleasant time.
And you've got different Englishaccents and a lot of people
there don't speak Englishanyway.
And it just, we weren't going toget into any bar and golden guy.
(31:27):
And we didn't, we tried a coupleand they were just, we couldn't
too small.
So we ended up going to anotherbar in Shinjuku.
It was called cheers.
And the moment I saw it, I'mlike, oh God it.
It's going to have a bunch of expats.
It's going to have a bunch ofdrunk Brits down there and
(31:48):
Brits, I love you.
And I love to get drunk withyou.
But when you're looking for anexperience in a foreign country,
that's a bit more local.
You don't necessarily want theexperience you've had in London
for months and months andmonths.
You know, you want to see whatit's like there, but whatever we
go down there and our group hasgrown to 12 at this point,
because like I said, LatinAmericans, that can sense the
(32:09):
dancing vibe.
You know, they sense when thehips shake and Latin-Americans
just kind of dance when they'rewalking down the street, if
they're feeling like they're ina good vibe.
So I can't quite do it, eventhough I just did it right then.
And uh, so anyway, we're about12 now.
And we go down underground intothis bar and not a single
foreigner to be found.
We are the only foreigners mindyou, by the way, it's a Tuesday
(32:33):
night or a Wednesday night inthe week.
It's maybe 11 ish, maybe 10o'clock ish.
The bar is full, almostcompletely full.
We managed to get a table, butalmost completely full it's only
men except for one table withthree girls in on it, which is
(32:55):
usually a sign that the manythings, none, necessarily
positive for you.
If you want to talk to a girl,led to an interesting story,
I'll get to in a moment.
So full of men, all wearingsuits, black suits, black tie,
white shirt, all drinking a lot.
And smoking like chimneys, likechimneys, you can't smoke
(33:20):
everywhere outside in Japan.
In fact, there are very fewplaces where you can't smoke
outside.
Some areas like around sevenEleven's and some other
designated areas.
That's where you can smoke, butindoors almost everywhere you
can smoke.
It's kind of funny how thatworks.
So here you didn't, you didn'teven have to light up a
(33:43):
cigarette.
It's it's like, uh, it was likethe early two thousands in
France or the nineties inAmerica.
And we're drinking, we'redrinking, we're drinking.
And we're looking around.
Nobody is talking to anybody,maybe a few whispers here and
there.
No one's socializing.
(34:03):
No one dare go up to anothertable that isn't their own
table.
One of the guys in my group didmanage to convince me to go hit
on the three pretty girls thatwere sitting on a table in the
middle of the room.
That of course failed miserably.
This is Japan.
So I don't think that they wereworking girls, but I do believe
(34:23):
that perhaps they were literallythe literal meaning of working
at that bar and had just gottensome food after their last
shift.
That's what I believe they weredoing there.
So no one was talking to them.
No one was hitting on them.
No one was doing anything withthem.
Uh, and then when we went up, itwas, I think there was a bit of
laughter in the room.
(34:44):
As in you, you idiots, you don'teven know what you're doing.
So that failed miserably.
We go back to our table.
We say, they're drinking for acouple hours.
And then half of our group goesaway because they want to take
the Metro to go back home.
The taxi home was$300.
So you're not going to, or 300euros.
I forget which one, maybe it waseuros.
So you're not going to take thetaxi home.
(35:05):
Uh, so if the Metro closes,you're stuck there, you're stuck
there.
I mean, it's crazy.
And the drive and the taxi wouldhave been like 30 minutes.
So I don't know, 300 bucks for30 minutes or less than 30
minutes.
The streets are empty.
No one drives there.
It's so incredibly expensive.
So we're getting more drunk.
The bars getting more drunk.
We're allowed, we're talking.
(35:27):
I am not the loudest one becauseI'm with a bunch of Latin
Americans.
So finally I, I feel normalbecause they're louder than me.
And we start to attract peopleto our table.
People who are sitting quietlyat other tables, start to come
up to our table.
When other people see howwelcoming we are to meeting
(35:50):
these few people, then morepeople come up and more people
come up and we drink more andeveryone's buying everyone
drinks.
And then we have a group that'shalf Japanese dues, half Latin
American dudes, and then me andwe're all having a great,
amazing time.
I become John Wayne, theJapanese dude I was talking to
(36:12):
becomes Godzilla.
And then it becomes John Wayneand Godzilla getting drunk all
night long.
We have so much fun.
And I really made me think allof these, there there's so many
things at play.
And what I'm saying here, by theway, if you just sort of analyze
(36:35):
it a little bit, I'll do alittle bit of it right now.
All of these guys that aresitting quietly alone in their
suits in the middle of the weekat a bar, many of them were very
happy to come up and socializewith us.
They just needed a littleindication that they were
welcome to do it.
And some alcohol, liquidcourage, but they enjoyed our
(37:00):
company.
We enjoyed their company.
We didn't go up to a singletable.
After the failure with thegirls, they had all just come to
us like imagine how many peopleare in this massive city that
don't feel personal connectionto others.
That wish that they had more ofa personal connection that
(37:20):
wished that they could just goup and meet other people and
talk about anything and laughand joke and call each other
Godzilla and John Wayne.
So I'm telling you here aboutthe amazing comfy, cozy feeling
I was able to have in goldenguy.
And now I'm telling you aboutall of these people who I
(37:41):
believe are lacking thatfeeling.
So I'm aware that as a foreigner, sometimes what happens is you
become a little mini celebrity.
So maybe if one of these guys,they come up to our table, went
to the three bars that Imentioned in golden guy.
They wouldn't be so welcomed.
They wouldn't have the, the, theGothic samurai, give them some
(38:02):
Saki and be so interested bythem.
They wouldn't be able to getinto the place that said that
the foreigners have to pay toget in.
I mean, that locals have to payto get in.
They'd get into the ones thatsay foreigners have to pay to
get in.
So they'd go in there and maybethey'd just sit alone and not
talk to anybody else.
So their experience might justbe very different than mine
(38:25):
because the bar we were in,there was a 10 minute walking
distance from golden guy.
So we had a really, really greattime, but it made me think about
all those guys drinking alone inthe bar.
And by closing time, a lot ofour group had left then two or
three in the morning, but therewere about 15 patrons who were
(38:46):
still there.
And there were at least five toseven guys were sleeping there.
The Metro's closed.
I told you it cost hundreds ofdollars to get home.
And I was staying in the centralpart of the city.
So imagine if you're stayingwhere it's affordable for you to
live, maybe it costs 500 bucksto get home.
(39:08):
Or even God forbid a thousandwhen the whole public transit
system is closed and you have togo an hour and a half away,
those guys were sleeping andthey were sleeping quietly, no
noise, no snoring, no vomiting,no urinating on themselves, no
one telling them to leaveeither.
And this is a part of theirculture and a part of where I
(39:28):
said all the stereotypes weretrue.
So if your boss asks you to goout in the evening, oh, I said,
I wasn't.
I said I was going to stay onjust golden guy for this talk,
but I want to talk about this.
Sorry.
So if your boss asks or not ask,if your boss goes out for drinks
after work, you are obligated togo out for drinks with him.
(39:53):
Now your boss has money.
Your boss can take a taxi home.
You can't.
And this is so prevalent thatpeople do sleep in bars and that
people will go to what arecalled.
I believe it's manga cafes orMonga cafes.
And I never really understoodwhat that was.
I think it's a place where yougo and read their version of
(40:15):
comic books.
I don't think they like it.
If you call it comic books.
And by they, I mean, actuallyanyone who likes manga or manga,
because I made a joke in thehostel with a bunch of
foreigners about anime andmanga, and it didn't go over
very well.
Um, so it's, it's not just aJapanese thing, but they had
those cafes and these cafes, Ithink have become places where
(40:39):
workers in the city will sleep.
And when they wake up in themorning, they have machines
vending machines where they canbuy socks, underwear, and a
shirt and a tie if they need it.
And then they just go to workafter never going home.
So these guys are sleeping inthe bar, peaceful, no trouble.
The, you know, a lot of theworld's, um, bar patrons could
(41:04):
learn how to peacefully sleep ina bar and not themselves from
these guys.
I have to say, but, uh, I cansaw, I think two of them
sleeping, standing up, it wasreally impressive and actually
kind of depressing becauseobviously they had learned to do
that.
Well, I'm depressing myselfright now, but we're going to go
back to golden guy in a second.
(41:26):
So man.
Yeah, that is depressing.
That's one of those stereotypesthat is depressing about.
So, uh, at this point it's 3:00AM.
Now 2:00 AM.
Everyone had left my group andit's me.
And it's two local guys who areeither journalists or spies.
They spoke oddly amazingEnglish.
(41:49):
English is not spoken so well inJapan.
Or even if they do speak itwell, they're not usually so
open to speak it.
And these guys, uh, took me backto golden guy and we went to one
of those bars where you pay toget in.
And I told them, I'm like, wecan go to one where you don't
have to pay.
Like, I think it's kinda crap.
Like I'm a little bit morallyopposed to this.
(42:10):
And I said, nah, don't worryabout it.
So we go in and it's the, thetwo Japanese dudes, me and then
the bartender.
And we're all just sittingacross from one another at the
bar, bartenders behind the bar,just drinking, having a great
time, talking about women for anhour or two hours.
They're talking about theirwives.
I'm talking about some exgirlfriend or something, just
(42:33):
shooting the for another couplehours, drinking with the
bartender and they wouldn't letme pay for a single drink.
Gosh, it was so great.
Laughs, drinks, stories, menfrom different cultures, just
getting along on pretty much thesame topics you ever.
(42:55):
If you're a guy and you everwant to get along, I don't know
how to tell women to get alongwith other women, but if you're
a guy and you want to get alongwith other guys, just talk about
women.
It's a, it's great.
It crosses all boundaries.
Uh, I've really was able to getalong very well with a guy from
Iran on an eight hour bus rideonce just talking about women.
(43:17):
And it's the great bridge for atleast men.
I don't know a women would talkabout asks, ask a woman what you
should talk about to other womenfrom other countries.
But the point is, it seems liketalking about the opposite sex.
It really brings you together.
And we had so much fun and this,this, by the way, these guys,
(43:38):
they weren't even the, uh,Godzilla guys.
They were other guys.
And it's so fun when you're,when you're getting drunk with
guys.
And, and, and he's trying totell you how to say Godzilla
properly because it's notGodzilla.
It's like go Jayla, Godzilla.
No good Chilla.
(43:59):
Oh my gosh.
Those are so there's so many funexperiences.
And this wonderful night justbegan with me and the hostel in
the common area, talking topeople, seeing what they were
doing and saying, does anyonewant to go out for a drink
tonight?
And then the Latin group said,hell yeah.
(44:21):
And then I ended up in goldenguy in that crazy Jean-Claude
van Damme, 1980s, Hong Kong bar,and then going to the cheers
place, meeting all the locals,failing miserably to talk to the
only three girls in the bar andthen meeting Mr.
Godzilla and then hanging outwith these two guys and going
(44:42):
back to golden guy and having agreat time.
And then after that, we ended upso drunk that I got these quiet
and reserved guys to just be soloud that we go to a, a, a, a
breakfast place at, I think 5:00AM and people are taking the
Metro to work at 4:00 AM, by theway, which means they've woken
(45:06):
up at 3:00 AM.
They've showered because theyhave to shower and get dressed
and get ready and be fresh.
And you'll see them on the Metroat 4:00 AM.
You're you're going homecompletely messed up.
And you see these people readyfor work sad.
So we go to the breakfast placeat 5:00 AM and you pay for your
(45:26):
food and a vending machine, andyou get a little ticket and then
you sit down, this is theimpersonal part of Tokyo.
So some of the food placesaren't like this, but some are
also like this.
So you go and you put some moneyin the vending machine and you
get a little ticket and theydon't have an English by the
way, for most of them.
So you gotta be with a local orjust play, you know, food
roulette.
(45:46):
I liked that game.
It's fun.
Um, you sit down and then youhand a guy, your ticket.
And the two guys I was withended up being so loud that they
got told to be quiet and not me.
So I'm pretty proud of that.
It's the one time.
And the people I was with weretold they were too loud, but not
me and our breakfast dish.
(46:07):
I was also going to include thisin another talk, but, but this
is just so fun.
This is all just one day, thebreakfast dish.
I didn't know what the hell Iwas ordering, but I love to try
new things.
It came with, um, a fewdifferent, interesting things.
Japan is very good with that.
They have, you don't just getone plate and a fork and a
knife.
(46:27):
You get lots of little things,put on a tray and you can
combine them.
And then you get lots of little,little like additions and tools.
You get your chopsticks and asalt shaker and a pepper shaker.
And the funny thing is there's,I didn't even know how to use it
when I was there and your dish,it isn't completely mixed
(46:49):
together.
So in addition to those twothings, right, doesn't sound
like a lot.
Chop six salt, pepper, justthree things.
But then you get a little dishwith an egg, which is separate
from everything.
And you don't know if it's hardboiled or soft boiled, or you
don't know what's going on withit.
I had a fertilized egg inCambodia.
Once I tell you what you want anatural laxative, eat a
fertilized egg from Cambodia.
(47:09):
Okay.
I told the girl I was with, Iwas like, listen, I know you
want to go to this fair, but Igot 30 minutes or less and
something's happening.
And I don't know what is goingto happen.
It's going up or it's goingdown, but 30 minutes or less.
So fertilize that.
So you don't know what's in theegg.
Okay.
And then you just get some, andthen you get a lot of other
(47:30):
little things on your plate andyou, you don't know what the
hell they are because the, theletters on the paper that you
gave to the giant, Sammer a Sumoguy.
Who's cooking your food.
Those letters are in tic-tac-toeletters.
So you don't know what's goingon.
And it's a raw egg that I'msupposed to mix in with the
(47:51):
rice.
And all I can think is I'm goingto die.
This might be worse than thefertilized egg, a raw egg mixed
in with the rice.
This is my breakfast.
No wonder everyone is sodepressed here.
(48:12):
It was amazing.
It was amazing.
There were about six other partsto the dish, but those are all
sort of normal food items.
And I don't remember the namesright now.
I could say them and you'd belike, oh, nice normal food
items.
But the, a raw egg mixed in withthe rice, with the chopsticks,
(48:34):
it looks disgusting.
I don't know what it smellslike, but I lost my smell at
that point in the night, youknow, but it tasted amazing.
And it did not make me sick.
God, what a, what a greatbreakfast.
Just three drunk dudes at 5:00AM on a Wednesday.
(48:56):
I think it was a Wednesdaymorning or a Thursday morning
eating our raw egg mixed in withrice.
That was, that was one of my,that was my most fun night.
That was my best night in Tokyo.
Two golden guy trips, anotherbar underground, local bar
(49:19):
underground.
Literally it was underground.
It wasn't like hidden.
And then a proper crazy weirdlittle Japanese breakfast, big.
Ooh, excuse me.
Big Japanese breakfast.
Gosh.
I love Tokyo.
I'm going to save up some money.
And one day I'm going to gothere for at least 30 days.
(49:41):
There's so much more to this.
I could talk for so long rightnow.
You have no idea.
There's so many great thingsfrom the arcades to the
Pachinko.
Oh my gosh.
But Shingo is like, if you couldmake slot machines as addictive
as crack or more or crack withslot machines, that's Pachinko.
(50:02):
Oh, I love Japan.
I'm going to give it third.
I'm going to save up money.
I'm going to give it 30 days.
I think I'm going to stay in ahostel, not an apartment, a
hostel, the hostels there.
Uh, you have your own littlecapsule kind of thing.
And it has ventilation and alittle table, and it's really
big.
And it's so cool.
And the toilets are heated andhad so many electronics on them.
(50:22):
You're afraid to push a buttonbecause you don't know what's
about to go up your, but somesort of alien probe.
I mean, it's just so, so cool.
So, so cool.
I've never been anywhere likeit.
Okay.
I have to stop this talk now ordo I, I don't know.
I'm feeling good.
I'm feeling good.
(50:43):
What else do I want to tell youabout Tokyo?
Oh no, this is a long one.
All right.
I just checked the recordingtime.
Okay.
I'm going to cut this for now,but I'm coming back to Tokyo and
we're going to talk a lot aboutit because there is so much
more, so much more.
(51:05):
Why don't I just make a Tokyo?
I mean a Japan podcast, onlyJapan.
All right.
I'm getting a little bit tooexcited by this, but uh, I hope
you enjoyed this podcast.
And if you have any questions orcomments or thoughts, please go
to a no fairy tale travels dotsub stack.com and find the post
(51:30):
for this podcast.
And you can leave a commentthere.
And also if you go there, giveit a heart or a like, or a
thumbs up, or however yousignify something positive
there, I'm still getting used tothis, this thing, this
communication medium.
(51:50):
Anyway, I hope you have a goodweekend and a great week.
Hello.
Hello and welcome back to nofairytale travels this week.
I'm in a great mood and I'mfeeling like we should talk
about Tokyo.
One of my favorite cities.
I talk a lot about it in reallife.
Well, I guess this is real lifealso, and I want to tell you
about it now because it's one ofmy favorite places to go.
(00:23):
And it is also Tokyo and Japanin general is the only place
that I've ever been, where everysingle stereotype about it is
true.
But here, I'm not just going totalk about all the little
interesting, beautiful, crazythings of Japan and Tokyo.
(00:43):
I have to force myself to focusor it's going to be an hour or
three hour long podcast.
So, oh, before I begin.
Yeah, no fairy tale travels dotsub stack.com.
If you have any questions orcomments, go to no fairy tale
travels dot sub stack.com.
(01:05):
Find the post for this podcastand leave me a message.
Comment, question, whatever youwant.
Give it a like, that'd be cool.
So Tokyo, let me tell you just alittle bit about how Tokyo is,
and then today I want to focuson just a little tiny aspect of
it that makes it really special,not just all the big things that
(01:26):
you know about.
So Tokyo is a mega city, a megacity of a mega cities.
It is the biggest city I've everbeen to.
It is a sea of buildings.
As far as the eye can see intothe distance until you see Mount
Fuji.
I believe it is.
I should have looked that one upbefore I said that, um, it's a
(01:50):
sea of buildings and I believe Iwanted to make sure I got this
right.
So I looked it up.
The numbers are that the cityhas 9 million maybe in the very,
very center and then 13 millionin the metropolis.
And the greater area is 38million ish, something like
that.
And I believe New York city is18 million ish or 15 or 14
(02:14):
million ish.
So just to give you an idea ofthe size difference, I think it
says the internet says the nextbiggest sort of metropolis area
is Seoul, Korea, which I stillvote on pronouncing seal.
So I've been there as well asTokyo.
And it really is a mega city,but Tokyo just trumps
(02:34):
everything.
So it's a mega city, so manypeople so much going on, but so
orderly and so perfect.
It is if you are to look like ifyou are to be Japanese or to
look Japanese.
(02:55):
So I guess to be Japanese, youwill disappear into a sea people
and maybe never be recognized ornoticed if you're a foreigner,
you are going to be noticedvery, very, very quickly because
there aren't that manyforeigners in Tokyo.
So you get more attention.
But what I just want to talkabout today is how big and how
vast it is, but that there is akernel of comfort and coziness
(03:19):
to the city that you can findthat makes it truly, truly
special.
Because as you're walkingthrough the streets around all
the tall buildings, and thenalso the little buildings,
depending on the area, andyou're going in the Metro full
of people and all theattractions and all the things
you can do, it can feeloverwhelming, can feel chaotic.
(03:41):
It can feel like why would Iever want to live in this city?
This is the least humaninteraction possible.
You are like sardines in a can.
You can't really well, you canexpress yourself, but it feels
like you can't express yourself.
You're just, I don't know.
You're like a plankton in thesea, nothing special, just one
(04:05):
of billions with everythingelse.
But Tokyo has something really,really special to it.
Something that has made it sothat I, even though only I've
only been there for 10 days, 10days in total, I said one day in
my life, one time in my life, Iam going to live there.
(04:26):
And the reason is because eventhough it is such a mega city,
which by the way, it has threeMetro lines.
And I think it might have afourth one.
If you tried to go to the beacharea, which is a little bit
toxic, because it's also a portarea, you, you can spend so much
money on the Metro in a day dueto them having multiple lines.
Like it's just so overwhelmingif you're not used to this type
(04:49):
of thing, but it has all ofthese little tiny establishments
throughout the city.
So you're in a mega city, butwhen you go into a restaurant,
you're going to be sitting therewith 10 people or 15 people.
The restaurant focuses on oneparticular dish.
I'm going to do an episode juston the food in Japan, by the
(05:10):
way, at some point, because itis the best food that I have
ever had in the entire world.
I believe seven of my 10 topdishes are all from Japan stuff
that I never expected to be sogood.
But when you engage, especiallyin eating and drinking, that's
when it can become morepersonal, more sociable, more
(05:31):
cozy and comfortable, not in allof the city.
They have a particular type ofracism in Japan, which I like to
call polite racism.
It's a poll.
They're the most polite racistyou've ever met in your entire
life.
So when they reject you fromsome eating establishments, it's
, it's, uh, in a very politeway, actually one chef, he just,
(05:53):
he just left and didn't comeback.
But that was a small littleeating, eating establishment
where you would go in there only10 or 15 people.
And it's nice and it's local solocal that they didn't want
foreigners, but okay, I'mgetting sidetracked.
I'm getting sidetrack.
The point is that I want to sayabout this big chaotic city, but
you can get these small, localpersonal experiences.
(06:15):
Now you're not going to get itin every single restaurant or
every single place you eat, orevery single thing that you do.
In fact, the purpose of thistalk today, this podcast is to
focus on one specific area thatmakes it really, really, really
special.
And that is called golden guy.
(06:38):
Sounds kind of weird when I sayit in English, I'm going to go
hang out in golden guy.
Okay.
I think if you say that in SanFrancisco, you are definitely
talking about something else.
So golden guy is this wonderfularea in Tokyo, that's near
Shinjuku shin shin.
Juku is kind of a veryinteresting entertainment area
(07:01):
of which there are many, butthis is a famous one and golden
guys next to it.
And what it is is a series ofsmall little streets, all
pedestrian zone, kind of likecobblestoney streets with, I
believe it's hundreds of littlebars and establishments and
every single one is different.
Every single one seems to beowner operated, different style,
(07:24):
different theme, maybe differenttypes of drinks.
And they seat between eight,maybe even less than that, eight
to 30 people.
So 30 is going to be a reallybig one.
I'd say the average one seats,maybe 15 people ish, probably.
(07:45):
And this is the place where youcan come from any part of the
city.
And the moment that you stepinto golden di you feel that you
have gone into sort of feudalJapan back in time, where
there's no cars buzzing by andthere's no chaos and things slow
down.
(08:05):
And when you enter anestablishment, if you're allowed
to enter, I'll get to that in amoment.
When you enter an establishment,you, you are, you are somewhere,
you are some, one you becomepart of a group, part of a
community.
Someone cares about you.
(08:26):
It almost feels like it ispersonal people.
Talk to you.
The bar Tinder engages you.
And I want to talk about threeplaces that I went to in golden
guy.
I had, I went there more thanthat, but I'm going to talk
about three here.
And for my 10 days in Tokyo, Ihad number of events planned
(08:50):
where I'm going to go to someinteresting nightclubs that
people talk about and travelbloggers, say, go here.
It's so cool, blah, blah, blue,blue, and go get drunk there and
see this and see that.
But after my first night ingolden guy, I stayed there until
5:00 AM had one of my best nightout experiences ever only went
(09:12):
to two bars.
And for the next three nights ina row, went back to this place.
It was that good.
So let me pour some wine andlet's talk about golden guy.
Was that an intro?
Does that count as an intro?
That was a lot of talking that Idid.
(09:32):
Sorry.
I didn't plan that out so much.
I just want to talk about goldenguy today.
Oh yeah.
That's a good amount of wine.
Okay.
This wine confidential, Reserva,Tinto red, apparently the wine
bottles they import to Americafrom Europe.
They give kind of like dumbeddown labels.
(09:54):
So I can't give you that muchinformation about this today.
It's a wine that's from theregion of Lisboa.
I like how the labels inEnglish, but they say Lisboa
instead of Lisbon, because theywant it to sound sexy.
I guess maybe it does.
I don't know.
Anyway, it's from Portugal.
Not really my favorite.
I do miss the grapes in theBalkans.
(10:15):
I missed the[inaudible], which I think is pronounced
Vonage, but that's okay. Um,so let's cheers to golden guy.
And I think by the end of this,you will also cheers to golden
guy.
So you walk around big, crazyTokyo.
(10:37):
You see some sites, you go to aspecial lunch with a Sumo and
you watch a little Sumoexhibition.
One of my favorite things inTokyo, I'll talk about it
another time.
And then you go to this weirdlittle place called golden guy,
golden guy.
What the hell is that?
Why are you there?
Someone in the hostel whocouldn't stop talking about
(11:00):
anime all day just said, let'sgo to golden guy and you don't
know where the hell you reallyare.
So you go and you get there andyou're walking down the streets
and you realize, wow, it feelslike I've entered another city.
You have two story buildings,everything feels small and cozy.
(11:22):
And the local, not that manypeople can fit into each
establishment.
In fact, at least half of theestablishment, maybe not half a
good amount of theestablishments have signs
outside that say for Japanesespeakers only.
And what that means by the wayis, uh, yeah.
(11:44):
Uh, off foreigners.
We don't want you, if you're notJapanese, we don't want you
because, uh, I dunno if you knowthis, there ain't that many
people learn in Japanese as aforeign language.
And I feel pretty confidentgiven some of my experiences
that maybe I'll talk about inanother podcast that, uh, uh,
even if you spoke Japanese, ifyou are not Japanese, they would
(12:07):
not have really been happy thatyou were in their bar.
And then there are a lot ofother little bars that say the
entrance fee is eight euros or10 euros or$8 or$10, something
like that.
And so you're thinking, oh mygosh, why am I going to pay$8 to
go into this little bar or$10?
And these places over here, theydon't even want me w this is
(12:31):
what am I doing here?
And then you keep walking andyou let the animate people in
your crew, just say, Hey, Hey,calm, calm, relax.
It's okay.
And you go into the first barand it's like, I want to say
Gothic gay samurai.
(12:51):
That's my description of thisbar.
God gay samurai, everything ispainted black.
The let's say camp looking, butalso bad-ass looking.
So I picked that word up from,from Britain.
I liked, you know, camp usingthat word in that regard, let's
say slightly interesting lookingyet.
(13:13):
Still bad-ass looking bartenderwho looks kind of like a samurai
that may be favors the same sex,um, standing behind the bar.
And now you're thinking I'm inone of the most traditional
societies I've ever been in, inmy life.
And I'm looking at a gay samuraiand a Gothic bar, and it only
(13:34):
seats 10 people where the hellam I.
And it turns out that the guyspecializes in, uh, I think it's
cocktails and Saki.
And so we had some really,really interesting fun drinks,
the bar tenders chatting to us,you know, when we went in, he
(13:56):
didn't just walk out anddisappear.
Like the other experience thathad happened to me in a
different neighborhood, heengaged us.
He talked to us, he gave me alot of attention, which I have
to say really kind of caught thegirls off guard.
Uh, they, they were a little bitannoyed by that, but it was
great for me.
I got all sorts of free Sakitasting out of it.
(14:19):
And nothing that we experiencedin that place felt like the big
chaotic Tokyo.
It was small cozy kind of weirdkind of interesting.
No, not kind of interesting,amazingly interesting fun and
above all welcoming.
(14:42):
It was great.
The only bad thing about thatexperience was half the group or
a bunch of negative Nancys.
So that had nothing to do withthe bar after this bar.
Wait, wait, let me describe Mr.
Samurai a little bit better.
So, okay.
Samurai guy.
I don't know why some peoplethink that Japanese people are
short, maybe in some parts ofJapan, they are, but in Tokyo,
(15:04):
certainly not.
So the guy is like a six foot,one, I think, or six foot.
What does that one meter?
82 centimeters, 83, 84centimeters, something like
that.
He's got big, broad shoulders,but it's kind of thin and has a
long flowing, shiny black hairdown to the middle of his back
(15:27):
or a little bit longer.
And he's got black clothes onand kind of silver ish rings on.
He is the gay Goss samurai and akind of campy look to him.
What's the, what's the word inEnglish for campiness?
I don't know.
(15:48):
There's a good one.
Anyway, I'm going to use theBritish one.
Kind of can't be look reallyfunny.
Dude, loved talking to us, loved, uh, meeting foreigners.
And we had a great time there.
So we spent a couple hours thereand then the negative Nancy
start complaining.
So we go outside and thenegative, Nancy's all go home
(16:08):
because they're negative Nancyswho the hell, even once I hang
out with them anyway.
And then we ended up beinginstead of a group of, I think,
five, a group of two or three orsix to two or three, we'd become
much smaller.
So we continue walking throughgolden guy.
And I think it is now thenegative Nancy's wanted to catch
(16:31):
the Metro, which means theywould have left around 12 ish,
maybe a little bit beforemidnight because the Metro
closes in Tokyo around thattime.
Maybe 1:00 AM.
So we're walking around goldenguy looking for other places and
kind of, we're just a little bitdismayed.
These people, they don't wantus.
(16:51):
So we had this great experiencewith the Gothic samurai dude.
And now we keep seeing all thesesigns, you know, uh, only
Japanese speakers, 10 year oldsto get in, uh, what was it?
Foreigners have to pay 10 eurosto get in.
That's what sign you'd seesometimes.
And we're getting more annoyed,more annoyed.
(17:12):
And then we get to the end of itand we make a sort of loop.
And as we're making a loop onthe end, we see one sign and all
these signs are in English.
We see one sign that saysforeigners don't pay to get in.
And he might've said also, um,locals pay 10 euros to get in.
(17:33):
He wanted foreigners to get in.
So we're thinking, whoa, okay.
I don't know what's going onhere.
This is like the witch in themiddle of the forest that offers
you candy.
So they can cut you up intolittle pieces.
You know, they offer yousomething nice to kind trick
you.
Now, we weren't really thatscared, but we just thought, oh
my God, finally, someone who,who, who wants to meet us and
(17:55):
Tokyo, by the way, it doesn'thave that many foreigners in it.
It's not like a Barcelona.
It's not like a Paris, oh myGod.
Or a London or anything likethat.
It's so far away and soexpensive to get to and so
expensive when you're there thatit really keeps out most
foreigners.
So it's not like in a one ofthese other big cities where you
can imagine how people get tiredof foreigners.
(18:16):
I think Japan has gotten tiredof foreigners just by, I don't
know, reading about them, notexperiencing them.
I don't actually know, but we gointo this guy's bar and it is a
dude in his sixties who hasowned this place for, I believe
his entire adult life.
He's got pictures of him withall local celebrities on the
(18:40):
wall.
He's got signed, handmadedrawings, custom drawings made
from top anime artists, which isa really popular style of, Ooh,
I got to be careful what I sayhere.
Um, artwork, it's not cartoons,but it's a really interesting
style and it's very famous andpopular in Japan.
(19:02):
Um, they do, um, animated showsout of it.
I believe it's animated showsand he's got all those song
signed drawings on the wall.
He's got baseball memorabiliaeverywhere, signed by the guys
who are in the photos.
And he's got baseballs that aresigned by everyone on the team.
Baseball is huge in Japan.
(19:23):
It's a little bit different thanthe U S one, but it's pretty
much the same.
And he's watching a TV with ablack and white movie and he
greets us with smiles.
And he's so happy when we comein.
There's no one else in there.
It seats about 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,7, 8, 9.
I think it, uh, it would seatsix people standing room for 12,
(19:47):
uh, standing room for twoaverage Americans or 20 Japanese
people.
It's a wood bar.
It's about two meters wide.
He's got a wooden thing aboveit, where he used to sit when he
was younger and play guitar.
As the bar was filled, he hadphotos of it and sing to all of
(20:10):
his patrons.
So he's playing the guitar he'ssinging and everyone is down
below drinking.
And down below the, the ceilingwas only about three meters,
high, 12 feet higher.
So we're 13 feet high.
And this dude wants nothing morethan to talk to foreigners and
(20:30):
to get our experiences and toshare experiences with us.
So we get there around 12 isharound one ish, and we're told
everywhere, kind of closes therearound two or three.
We stayed for hours, drinking,telling stories, reliving this
guy's past and going through allof his memorabilia, watching the
(20:54):
movie on the, on the TV here andthere, or little scenes of it.
I think it was maybe a Westernmovie or something from the U S
just a really, reallyinteresting guy who believes
that the beauty of life is thediversity of our experiences in
life.
(21:14):
And that, that is what enrichesus.
So all these other places, notall of them, you know, we had
Gothic samurai, dude.
He was cool, but a lot of theother places, they just, they
only want their regulars, whichis very understandable, by the
way, you want to get a stressfullife.
You want to hang out with thesame crew.
I get it.
But this guy, he wants thedifferences.
(21:35):
He wants the experiences.
And we just got drunk with himfor hours talking about
everything under the sun, it wassmall, it was cozy.
It was welcoming.
It was lovely.
(21:57):
And we didn't leave until, Idon't know, 4:00 AM 5:00 AM,
something like that.
I think four 30.
That was my first night ingolden guy.
So after that, you can imaginehow the, the thought of just
going to some club where I'mgoing to go, okay, look, I've
been to a lot of clubs in mylife.
(22:18):
So the thought of just going toanother club and dancing and
drinking and having relativelysimilar experiences to all the
other ones I've had in my entirelife.
And, uh, quote unquote, theworld's nicest places or gloves
or some crap like that is notappealing when you, when you get
this beautiful, unique, amazingexperience.
(22:43):
And for every single night afterthis one, I went back to golden
guy.
I went to different bars and Ihad different experiences, all
fun, all crazy, all weird andinteresting, all cozy and all
surprisingly welcoming.
(23:04):
So for this podcast, I'm gladthat I actually know what this
thing is.
Now.
I went to recount one more ofthe bars in golden guy.
There are many experiences thatI have there, but I want to give
you one more that I thought wasreally, really, really
(23:25):
interesting.
So one night I am in the hosteland I meet up with the Latin
contingent.
There are some central Americansand some south Americans who are
there and I ended up hanging outwith them.
They're always fun to hang outwith.
(23:46):
I have to tell you, okay, I gotto, I'm going to stay on topic.
I'm going to stay on topic.
Latin Americans are really funto go out with.
They're very loud.
They move their bodies a lotwithout warning.
If there's even a hint of musicanywhere, or they even think of
music.
So anyway, I go out with him, wego to golden guy and we're
(24:09):
looking for a new place and wego, we're a slightly larger
group.
So we can't go into the twoplaces I just mentioned.
I think we were six people.
No, not at all.
We were more than six people.
I don't know.
Anyway, the samurai guys' placewas full, so we couldn't go in
there.
And the other dude's place wastoo small for us to go in.
So we go in some place where yougo upstairs, scary little dark
(24:36):
wooden stairs without a light toa second floor where it looks
like it's going to be some sortof a whorehouse or drug, uh,
place, or, or just a place whereyou are not welcome in any other
country.
You, you would be, uh, a lotmore scared in Japan.
You're not that scared, butyou're like, Hmm, maybe this is
(24:59):
not for foreigners, but the bardidn't have anything on the
outside that said we cancouldn't come in or that we had
to pay, or we had to speakJapanese or anything.
So we go in on the second floor.
And, and, and have you ever seena Jean-Claude van Damme movie
from the nineties or theeighties?
(25:20):
Did he, did he make any in theeighties?
I don't know.
I've watched a lot ofJean-Claude van Damme movies.
I love his movies.
So go to like eighties, HongKong style bar, kind of, and
that's what it felt like.
It was a bigger bar.
You could probably fit 30 peopleinside and had a full size bar
in it.
It had some standing tables andsincere sitting tables.
(25:41):
The light wa all, all the lightshad a red hue to them.
And there were a couple ofmedium-sized chandelier's
hanging from the ceiling as wellas a couple of TVs, playing
older movies on them, likekarate movies.
And I believe that the movieswere subtitled in the same
(26:03):
language that they were in.
Like, I think it was an Englishmovie, but with English
subtitles or something likethat.
And so we walk in and we see allof these guys, I'm going to
paint a picture for you someslightly chubby with all with
black shirts and kind of jeansand some just, you know what,
(26:25):
you, you know, skinny, tallertypes, whatever, but everybody
kind of wearing black.
Right.
And everyone just sort ofsitting down, talking, laughing,
being loud and being what seemedlike open.
And we just sort of walk in andthis doesn't happen in Japan.
They're very quiet, veryreserved, very thin.
(26:46):
So you walk in, you see allthese things you don't normally
see.
And I was like, holy, we do notbelong here.
This is not good for us.
We need to get the hell out ofhere.
But you with south Americans whohad seen stuff and then, and
(27:09):
been in, in, in, in dangeroussituations, just talk to them
about motorbikes.
If they hear a motorbike soundthat's loud and kind of behind
them, they have PTSD from thatbecause they think someone's
going to steal bag from them.
And so we go in there, they'relike, no, no, no, everything's
good.
Everything's good.
We're just going to relax.
So we go to one of the stand-uptables and we order some drinks.
(27:31):
And there is only a coupleladies there.
I think one of them is behindthe bar.
Everyone is smoking like achimney.
I sit against the wall and I'mlike, Jesus Christ.
We are in a mafia bar.
Like, this is, this is not goingto be good.
What the hell is happening here?
And then about 10 minutes later.
(27:51):
So our drinks come and then 10minutes later, a round of
tequila shots arrives at ourtable for free.
And the guy who ordered themcomes up and we all take shots
and we talk and we laugh and wedrink.
And everyone in the room laughsand talks and drinks.
(28:14):
And now that I'm saying this outloud, I'm thinking maybe he was
the one that was sent toinvestigate why we were there.
So it doesn't necessarily meanthat it wasn't some sort of
mafia bar.
But, but what I was thinking iseither someone is going to tell
us, get the hell outta here, orthey aren't going to serve us.
Or they're just going to beincredibly rude to us.
(28:36):
But what happened is we got freedrinks and throughout the course
of the evening, not just thatguy, but other people in the bar
came up to talk to us.
You don't have to go far to comeup to someone there about a foot
30 centimeters, no, a couple offeet there.
So like you go a meter, you gothree feet and then you run into
someone, you talk to him.
So we got to meet all sorts ofpeople.
(28:57):
There were people bringing foodto the bar from other
restaurants.
And so you could tell thateveryone there was irregular,
but instead of shunning us,which had happened at other
establishments, not in goldenguy, but in other places, they
welcomed us.
And we were there for hoursdrinking and having a great time
at this place that looked like aJean-Claude van Damme mafia bar
(29:19):
from Hong Kong in the 1980s.
And this is all in golden guy inTokyo.
And the other few times that Iwent there to different bars as
well.
The experiences were alwaysdifferent, always unique.
(29:40):
Nothing was the same, nothing asfar as the look or necessarily
the feel, but the bars that wewere able to get into and that
we did go into the one themethat was consistent was cozy,
comfort, warmth, and beingwelcomed.
(30:01):
It was, gosh, it was so great.
You know what?
I'm not done with this story.
I was going to end right there,but I'm not done.
I'm not done because the, thestory that I just told you the
night did not end in golden guy.
Then actually the night did endin golden guy for me that night
I was there twice.
So here's what happened.
I'm going to tell you, okay,here's what happened.
(30:21):
So that night we're having agreat time and Latin Americans,
they've always got big groups ofpeople.
I think it's just one of themdances somewhere in the city.
And another one feels it thatcan sense the dancing.
And so they, they gravitatetowards the, the ones who are
dancing on the other side of thecity and they find them.
So our group was quicklygrowing.
(30:42):
There were some others outside.
We went to meet up with them.
So a couple hours after we'vebeen in this bar, we said
goodbye to everyone.
They were so friendly.
We had a great time.
I'm not certain that they wouldwant us to come back every
night, but they were at leastinterested and welcoming of us
that night.
And I liked it.
So we go outside and we thenbecome a group of 10 people,
(31:03):
which is basically impossiblefor us to go into any bar and
golden guy.
We're not going to get a seat.
The bar would have to becompletely empty and then they'd
have to want to have a bar fullof 10 foreigners.
And it's just, and it's going tobe really not a pleasant time.
And you've got different Englishaccents and a lot of people
there don't speak Englishanyway.
And it just, we weren't going toget into any bar and golden guy.
(31:27):
And we didn't, we tried a coupleand they were just, we couldn't
too small.
So we ended up going to anotherbar in Shinjuku.
It was called cheers.
And the moment I saw it, I'mlike, oh God it.
It's going to have a bunch of expats.
It's going to have a bunch ofdrunk Brits down there and
(31:48):
Brits, I love you.
And I love to get drunk withyou.
But when you're looking for anexperience in a foreign country,
that's a bit more local.
You don't necessarily want theexperience you've had in London
for months and months andmonths.
You know, you want to see whatit's like there, but whatever we
go down there and our group hasgrown to 12 at this point,
because like I said, LatinAmericans, that can sense the
(32:09):
dancing vibe.
You know, they sense when thehips shake and Latin-Americans
just kind of dance when they'rewalking down the street, if
they're feeling like they're ina good vibe.
So I can't quite do it, eventhough I just did it right then.
And uh, so anyway, we're about12 now.
And we go down underground intothis bar and not a single
foreigner to be found.
We are the only foreigners mindyou, by the way, it's a Tuesday
(32:33):
night or a Wednesday night inthe week.
It's maybe 11 ish, maybe 10o'clock ish.
The bar is full, almostcompletely full.
We managed to get a table, butalmost completely full it's only
men except for one table withthree girls in on it, which is
(32:55):
usually a sign that the manythings, none, necessarily
positive for you.
If you want to talk to a girl,led to an interesting story,
I'll get to in a moment.
So full of men, all wearingsuits, black suits, black tie,
white shirt, all drinking a lot.
And smoking like chimneys, likechimneys, you can't smoke
(33:20):
everywhere outside in Japan.
In fact, there are very fewplaces where you can't smoke
outside.
Some areas like around sevenEleven's and some other
designated areas.
That's where you can smoke, butindoors almost everywhere you
can smoke.
It's kind of funny how thatworks.
So here you didn't, you didn'teven have to light up a
(33:43):
cigarette.
It's it's like, uh, it was likethe early two thousands in
France or the nineties inAmerica.
And we're drinking, we'redrinking, we're drinking.
And we're looking around.
Nobody is talking to anybody,maybe a few whispers here and
there.
No one's socializing.
(34:03):
No one dare go up to anothertable that isn't their own
table.
One of the guys in my group didmanage to convince me to go hit
on the three pretty girls thatwere sitting on a table in the
middle of the room.
That of course failed miserably.
This is Japan.
So I don't think that they wereworking girls, but I do believe
(34:23):
that perhaps they were literallythe literal meaning of working
at that bar and had just gottensome food after their last
shift.
That's what I believe they weredoing there.
So no one was talking to them.
No one was hitting on them.
No one was doing anything withthem.
Uh, and then when we went up, itwas, I think there was a bit of
laughter in the room.
(34:44):
As in you, you idiots, you don'teven know what you're doing.
So that failed miserably.
We go back to our table.
We say, they're drinking for acouple hours.
And then half of our group goesaway because they want to take
the Metro to go back home.
The taxi home was$300.
So you're not going to, or 300euros.
I forget which one, maybe it waseuros.
So you're not going to take thetaxi home.
(35:05):
Uh, so if the Metro closes,you're stuck there, you're stuck
there.
I mean, it's crazy.
And the drive and the taxi wouldhave been like 30 minutes.
So I don't know, 300 bucks for30 minutes or less than 30
minutes.
The streets are empty.
No one drives there.
It's so incredibly expensive.
So we're getting more drunk.
The bars getting more drunk.
We're allowed, we're talking.
(35:27):
I am not the loudest one becauseI'm with a bunch of Latin
Americans.
So finally I, I feel normalbecause they're louder than me.
And we start to attract peopleto our table.
People who are sitting quietlyat other tables, start to come
up to our table.
When other people see howwelcoming we are to meeting
(35:50):
these few people, then morepeople come up and more people
come up and we drink more andeveryone's buying everyone
drinks.
And then we have a group that'shalf Japanese dues, half Latin
American dudes, and then me andwe're all having a great,
amazing time.
I become John Wayne, theJapanese dude I was talking to
(36:12):
becomes Godzilla.
And then it becomes John Wayneand Godzilla getting drunk all
night long.
We have so much fun.
And I really made me think allof these, there there's so many
things at play.
And what I'm saying here, by theway, if you just sort of analyze
(36:35):
it a little bit, I'll do alittle bit of it right now.
All of these guys that aresitting quietly alone in their
suits in the middle of the weekat a bar, many of them were very
happy to come up and socializewith us.
They just needed a littleindication that they were
welcome to do it.
And some alcohol, liquidcourage, but they enjoyed our
(37:00):
company.
We enjoyed their company.
We didn't go up to a singletable.
After the failure with thegirls, they had all just come to
us like imagine how many peopleare in this massive city that
don't feel personal connectionto others.
That wish that they had more ofa personal connection that
(37:20):
wished that they could just goup and meet other people and
talk about anything and laughand joke and call each other
Godzilla and John Wayne.
So I'm telling you here aboutthe amazing comfy, cozy feeling
I was able to have in goldenguy.
And now I'm telling you aboutall of these people who I
(37:41):
believe are lacking thatfeeling.
So I'm aware that as a foreigner, sometimes what happens is you
become a little mini celebrity.
So maybe if one of these guys,they come up to our table, went
to the three bars that Imentioned in golden guy.
They wouldn't be so welcomed.
They wouldn't have the, the, theGothic samurai, give them some
(38:02):
Saki and be so interested bythem.
They wouldn't be able to getinto the place that said that
the foreigners have to pay toget in.
I mean, that locals have to payto get in.
They'd get into the ones thatsay foreigners have to pay to
get in.
So they'd go in there and maybethey'd just sit alone and not
talk to anybody else.
So their experience might justbe very different than mine
(38:25):
because the bar we were in,there was a 10 minute walking
distance from golden guy.
So we had a really, really greattime, but it made me think about
all those guys drinking alone inthe bar.
And by closing time, a lot ofour group had left then two or
three in the morning, but therewere about 15 patrons who were
(38:46):
still there.
And there were at least five toseven guys were sleeping there.
The Metro's closed.
I told you it cost hundreds ofdollars to get home.
And I was staying in the centralpart of the city.
So imagine if you're stayingwhere it's affordable for you to
live, maybe it costs 500 bucksto get home.
(39:08):
Or even God forbid a thousandwhen the whole public transit
system is closed and you have togo an hour and a half away,
those guys were sleeping andthey were sleeping quietly, no
noise, no snoring, no vomiting,no urinating on themselves, no
one telling them to leaveeither.
And this is a part of theirculture and a part of where I
(39:28):
said all the stereotypes weretrue.
So if your boss asks you to goout in the evening, oh, I said,
I wasn't.
I said I was going to stay onjust golden guy for this talk,
but I want to talk about this.
Sorry.
So if your boss asks or not ask,if your boss goes out for drinks
after work, you are obligated togo out for drinks with him.
(39:53):
Now your boss has money.
Your boss can take a taxi home.
You can't.
And this is so prevalent thatpeople do sleep in bars and that
people will go to what arecalled.
I believe it's manga cafes orMonga cafes.
And I never really understoodwhat that was.
I think it's a place where yougo and read their version of
(40:15):
comic books.
I don't think they like it.
If you call it comic books.
And by they, I mean, actuallyanyone who likes manga or manga,
because I made a joke in thehostel with a bunch of
foreigners about anime andmanga, and it didn't go over
very well.
Um, so it's, it's not just aJapanese thing, but they had
those cafes and these cafes, Ithink have become places where
(40:39):
workers in the city will sleep.
And when they wake up in themorning, they have machines
vending machines where they canbuy socks, underwear, and a
shirt and a tie if they need it.
And then they just go to workafter never going home.
So these guys are sleeping inthe bar, peaceful, no trouble.
The, you know, a lot of theworld's, um, bar patrons could
(41:04):
learn how to peacefully sleep ina bar and not themselves from
these guys.
I have to say, but, uh, I cansaw, I think two of them
sleeping, standing up, it wasreally impressive and actually
kind of depressing becauseobviously they had learned to do
that.
Well, I'm depressing myselfright now, but we're going to go
back to golden guy in a second.
(41:26):
So man.
Yeah, that is depressing.
That's one of those stereotypesthat is depressing about.
So, uh, at this point it's 3:00AM.
Now 2:00 AM.
Everyone had left my group andit's me.
And it's two local guys who areeither journalists or spies.
They spoke oddly amazingEnglish.
(41:49):
English is not spoken so well inJapan.
Or even if they do speak itwell, they're not usually so
open to speak it.
And these guys, uh, took me backto golden guy and we went to one
of those bars where you pay toget in.
And I told them, I'm like, wecan go to one where you don't
have to pay.
Like, I think it's kinda crap.
Like I'm a little bit morallyopposed to this.
(42:10):
And I said, nah, don't worryabout it.
So we go in and it's the, thetwo Japanese dudes, me and then
the bartender.
And we're all just sittingacross from one another at the
bar, bartenders behind the bar,just drinking, having a great
time, talking about women for anhour or two hours.
They're talking about theirwives.
I'm talking about some exgirlfriend or something, just
(42:33):
shooting the for another couplehours, drinking with the
bartender and they wouldn't letme pay for a single drink.
Gosh, it was so great.
Laughs, drinks, stories, menfrom different cultures, just
getting along on pretty much thesame topics you ever.
(42:55):
If you're a guy and you everwant to get along, I don't know
how to tell women to get alongwith other women, but if you're
a guy and you want to get alongwith other guys, just talk about
women.
It's a, it's great.
It crosses all boundaries.
Uh, I've really was able to getalong very well with a guy from
Iran on an eight hour bus rideonce just talking about women.
(43:17):
And it's the great bridge for atleast men.
I don't know a women would talkabout asks, ask a woman what you
should talk about to other womenfrom other countries.
But the point is, it seems liketalking about the opposite sex.
It really brings you together.
And we had so much fun and this,this, by the way, these guys,
(43:38):
they weren't even the, uh,Godzilla guys.
They were other guys.
And it's so fun when you're,when you're getting drunk with
guys.
And, and, and he's trying totell you how to say Godzilla
properly because it's notGodzilla.
It's like go Jayla, Godzilla.
No good Chilla.
(43:59):
Oh my gosh.
Those are so there's so many funexperiences.
And this wonderful night justbegan with me and the hostel in
the common area, talking topeople, seeing what they were
doing and saying, does anyonewant to go out for a drink
tonight?
And then the Latin group said,hell yeah.
(44:21):
And then I ended up in goldenguy in that crazy Jean-Claude
van Damme, 1980s, Hong Kong bar,and then going to the cheers
place, meeting all the locals,failing miserably to talk to the
only three girls in the bar andthen meeting Mr.
Godzilla and then hanging outwith these two guys and going
(44:42):
back to golden guy and having agreat time.
And then after that, we ended upso drunk that I got these quiet
and reserved guys to just be soloud that we go to a, a, a, a
breakfast place at, I think 5:00AM and people are taking the
Metro to work at 4:00 AM, by theway, which means they've woken
(45:06):
up at 3:00 AM.
They've showered because theyhave to shower and get dressed
and get ready and be fresh.
And you'll see them on the Metroat 4:00 AM.
You're you're going homecompletely messed up.
And you see these people readyfor work sad.
So we go to the breakfast placeat 5:00 AM and you pay for your
(45:26):
food and a vending machine, andyou get a little ticket and then
you sit down, this is theimpersonal part of Tokyo.
So some of the food placesaren't like this, but some are
also like this.
So you go and you put some moneyin the vending machine and you
get a little ticket and theydon't have an English by the
way, for most of them.
So you gotta be with a local orjust play, you know, food
roulette.
(45:46):
I liked that game.
It's fun.
Um, you sit down and then youhand a guy, your ticket.
And the two guys I was withended up being so loud that they
got told to be quiet and not me.
So I'm pretty proud of that.
It's the one time.
And the people I was with weretold they were too loud, but not
me and our breakfast dish.
(46:07):
I was also going to include thisin another talk, but, but this
is just so fun.
This is all just one day, thebreakfast dish.
I didn't know what the hell Iwas ordering, but I love to try
new things.
It came with, um, a fewdifferent, interesting things.
Japan is very good with that.
They have, you don't just getone plate and a fork and a
knife.
(46:27):
You get lots of little things,put on a tray and you can
combine them.
And then you get lots of little,little like additions and tools.
You get your chopsticks and asalt shaker and a pepper shaker.
And the funny thing is there's,I didn't even know how to use it
when I was there and your dish,it isn't completely mixed
(46:49):
together.
So in addition to those twothings, right, doesn't sound
like a lot.
Chop six salt, pepper, justthree things.
But then you get a little dishwith an egg, which is separate
from everything.
And you don't know if it's hardboiled or soft boiled, or you
don't know what's going on withit.
I had a fertilized egg inCambodia.
Once I tell you what you want anatural laxative, eat a
fertilized egg from Cambodia.
(47:09):
Okay.
I told the girl I was with, Iwas like, listen, I know you
want to go to this fair, but Igot 30 minutes or less and
something's happening.
And I don't know what is goingto happen.
It's going up or it's goingdown, but 30 minutes or less.
So fertilize that.
So you don't know what's in theegg.
Okay.
And then you just get some, andthen you get a lot of other
(47:30):
little things on your plate andyou, you don't know what the
hell they are because the, theletters on the paper that you
gave to the giant, Sammer a Sumoguy.
Who's cooking your food.
Those letters are in tic-tac-toeletters.
So you don't know what's goingon.
And it's a raw egg that I'msupposed to mix in with the
(47:51):
rice.
And all I can think is I'm goingto die.
This might be worse than thefertilized egg, a raw egg mixed
in with the rice.
This is my breakfast.
No wonder everyone is sodepressed here.
(48:12):
It was amazing.
It was amazing.
There were about six other partsto the dish, but those are all
sort of normal food items.
And I don't remember the namesright now.
I could say them and you'd belike, oh, nice normal food
items.
But the, a raw egg mixed in withthe rice, with the chopsticks,
(48:34):
it looks disgusting.
I don't know what it smellslike, but I lost my smell at
that point in the night, youknow, but it tasted amazing.
And it did not make me sick.
God, what a, what a greatbreakfast.
Just three drunk dudes at 5:00AM on a Wednesday.
(48:56):
I think it was a Wednesdaymorning or a Thursday morning
eating our raw egg mixed in withrice.
That was, that was one of my,that was my most fun night.
That was my best night in Tokyo.
Two golden guy trips, anotherbar underground, local bar
(49:19):
underground.
Literally it was underground.
It wasn't like hidden.
And then a proper crazy weirdlittle Japanese breakfast, big.
Ooh, excuse me.
Big Japanese breakfast.
Gosh.
I love Tokyo.
I'm going to save up some money.
And one day I'm going to gothere for at least 30 days.
(49:41):
There's so much more to this.
I could talk for so long rightnow.
You have no idea.
There's so many great thingsfrom the arcades to the
Pachinko.
Oh my gosh.
But Shingo is like, if you couldmake slot machines as addictive
as crack or more or crack withslot machines, that's Pachinko.
(50:02):
Oh, I love Japan.
I'm going to give it third.
I'm going to save up money.
I'm going to give it 30 days.
I think I'm going to stay in ahostel, not an apartment, a
hostel, the hostels there.
Uh, you have your own littlecapsule kind of thing.
And it has ventilation and alittle table, and it's really
big.
And it's so cool.
And the toilets are heated andhad so many electronics on them.
(50:22):
You're afraid to push a buttonbecause you don't know what's
about to go up your, but somesort of alien probe.
I mean, it's just so, so cool.
So, so cool.
I've never been anywhere likeit.
Okay.
I have to stop this talk now ordo I, I don't know.
I'm feeling good.
I'm feeling good.
(50:43):
What else do I want to tell youabout Tokyo?
Oh no, this is a long one.
All right.
I just checked the recordingtime.
Okay.
I'm going to cut this for now,but I'm coming back to Tokyo and
we're going to talk a lot aboutit because there is so much
more, so much more.
(51:05):
Why don't I just make a Tokyo?
I mean a Japan podcast, onlyJapan.
All right.
I'm getting a little bit tooexcited by this, but uh, I hope
you enjoyed this podcast.
And if you have any questions orcomments or thoughts, please go
to a no fairy tale travels dotsub stack.com and find the post
(51:30):
for this podcast.
And you can leave a commentthere.
And also if you go there, giveit a heart or a like, or a
thumbs up, or however yousignify something positive
there, I'm still getting used tothis, this thing, this
communication medium.
(51:50):
Anyway, I hope you have a goodweekend and a great week.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.